Who, Me?
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz smoked marijuana in his youth, his campaign told Daily Mail Online on Tuesday – putting him in the same camp as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who acknowledged his high school pot-smoking days on Friday.
‘Teenagers are often known for their lack of judgment, and Sen. Cruz was no exception,’ a Cruz spokesperson said.
‘When he was a teenager, he foolishly experimented with marijuana. It was a mistake, and he’s never tried it since.’
The spokesperson wouldn’t elaborate about how many times Cruz had tried the illegal drug, over how long a period the experimentation occurred, and exactly how old he was at the time.
Daily Mail Online asked spokespersons for 10 likely Republican presidential candidates whether their bosses had ever lit up doobies, smoked bongs or otherwise tried weed. Seven of them responded.
Cruz’s reply was the only one that provided a new admission of what tends to become a character issue during major political cycles.
Cruz, 45, was born in Alberta, Canada, the son of a Cuban emigre father and a Delaware-born mother who met the elder Cruz, Rafael, in the oil business in New Orleans. Eleanor Darragh, an Irish-American, had studied mathematics at Rice University in Houston.
Imprisoned and tortured by the Fulgencio Batista regime in Cuba, Rafael, now 75, came to America on a student visa at age 18 – with no possessions other than $100 sewn into his underwear. He also was missing two teeth, whichCuban prison guards kicked out in 1957.
Rafael earned a degree from the University of Texas and paid his tuition by washing dishes for 50 cents per hour.
The Cruzes founded a company that processed seismographic data for oil prospectors, and moved to Canada where there was less competition among the drillers. The senator was born there but returned to Texas at age three when his parents sold their company.
In those early years, however, Rafael abandoned Ted and his mother in Calgary, and returned to Houston alone.
Cruz told an audience at January’s Iowa Freedom Summit that his father found God, returned to Canada, and reunited with his wife and son.
Rafael Cruz is now a preacher, but his marriage to the senator’s mother ultimately ended in divorce. He had two daughters in a prior marriage – the senator’s half-sisters.
The Houston Chronicle reported in January that Sen. Cruz was ticketed for underage alcohol possession when he was 17, after police found an unopened case of beer in his car.
He listed the offense on an application to become the Texas solicitor general in 2003.
‘Teenagers often make foolish mistakes, and that certainly applied to me as well,’ Cruz told Buzzfeed when the document surfaced.
But most of his early history is that of a brilliant overachiever: debating champion at Princeton, honors graduate from Harvard Law School, co-founder of the Harvard Latino Law Review.
As he nudges into the top tier of GOP presidential hopefuls, opposition researchers will no doubt dig deeper for additional ‘teenager’ moments in his past.
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